The newly constituted national executives of the Ghana National Association of Small Scale Miners (GNASSM) have fingered constituency executives of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) for unauthorised activities in the mining sector.

The Association alleged that the executives are scrambling for and allocating concessions originally reserved for small scale miners to themselves under the guise of community mining.

The Association warns that if the trend continues, the millions of Ghana cedis invested into the nationwide fight against the menace will come to nothing, the consequence of which will be a return of full-blown galamsey.

Addressing board members of the Minerals Commission at a high-level meeting in Kumasi last Thursday.

General Secretary of GNASSM, Godwin Armah said, "Members of the community mining project perceive us [small scale miners] as enemies…they even prevent us from visiting their sites.

"It has been politicised and has become common to find party chairman of constituencies claiming ownership of concession. What they [constituency chairmen] want to do is to sidestep the law and go purely political with mining operations".

He went on to underscore the dangers of the phenomenon, warning, "It is a dangerous development and if it continues, ownership of small scale mining concessions will sadly assume the phenomenon we've seen with scramble and seizure of KVIP when political power changes hands after elections in Ghana".

The Association has also called for reliefs from the Commission and government including tax reduction and reduction in royalty payment from the current 5% down to 2% for their members.